By Faith…
Believe it or not, I struggle to cope with the heat despite my origins in one of the most temperate regions of the world. The thing is that this wonderful and fearfully crafted body of ours adapts to the new environment using circulatory, metabolic and sensory adjustments, and sometimes, the foreign environment takes over completely. I couldn’t tell you the extent to which I am looking forward to the autumn, particularly the September week of prayer when my thermometer begins to cool down and my head and mind resets at the agency of the cool breeze and focused prayer.
As we look forward to coming together again to unite our hearts, and minds in prayer, I would like to encourage us with a profound truth of certainty of answers to our prayers.
After the flood, God made a universal covenant of natural stability of creation with Noah in Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” In the same manner, our prayers are yielding harvests both in the short and long term, while the earth remains. Whether we feel it or not, we will reap a harvest to every seed of prayer that we sow. Let’s keep sowing in faith.
This autumn prayer week, we will challenge and encourage ourselves to grow our faith and put it to work. We learn from scriptures in Hebrews 11:6, “that without faith, it is impossible to please God”. In fact, Romans 14:23 states that anything done outside of faith is sin! And faith without works is dead!
But what is faith? Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” In one way, we can liken faith to a software in the hardware of the human mind that shapes how we process data and drive our daily actions and results. This “software” operates through a crucial three-step pattern:
- Saying: Speaking the word
- Seeing: Visualizing the result
- Calling: Naming the reality into existence
Prayer provides us the atmosphere to speak, visualize and call out.
We see a demonstration of this kind of faith by God, the chief architect and master builder. He created the universe by faith through His word, He said “Let there be light,” then He saw that the light was good, and He called it “Day”.
Faith and Love go hand in hand, and it is important to remember that our faith in God is motivated by love, which defines God.
By faith Abraham – left his homeland for an unknown, undisclosed destination when God called him.
By faith Deborah – arose a mother in Israel at a desperate time and turned things around.
By faith David – although a young lad, faced and defeated the giant Goliath with a stone and sling.
By faith Esther – risked her life by approaching the King without an invitation.
What about Mary, Joseph, Ruth, Rahab, and what is God calling you to do by faith?
God remains the same all through the ages and He will also grant us success as we take little steps of faith towards Him. I can’t wait! Can you?
by Grace Orkar
Meeting times: Sunday 13th September to Saturday 19th September 7:45 to 9:30pm daily (Saturday 7:45pm – 12:15am)
